

BLAC 







ALBERT BEN 

CUNiNING 




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Class _■ 

Book.. 



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CopyiiglrtN" 

COIVRIGHT DEPOSIT 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
THE CHRONICLE OF AN OLD TOWN 






AL5ERT BENeJAMIN 
CUNNINGHAM 



tfa>BflB»kB>m» 



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THE ABINGDON PRESS 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI 






Copyright, 1922, by 
ALBERT BENJAMIN CUNNINGHAM 



Printed in tlie United States of America 



JUL -7 1922 

©CI.AC74836 

tier./. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTBR PAGB 

The Lure 7 

I. The Spawn 11 

II. Infancy 16 

III. Comedy and Tragedy 25 

IV. Natural Selection 37 

V. The Emergence of a Bully 51 

VL The Despoilers 62 

VII. A Philosophy of Life 71 

VIII. Great Fish Meets Canny Angler ... 85 
IX. The Battlers 102 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

"Male and female kept racial vigil over the 
nest." 12 

"The bass was terrified at sight of this tra- 
ditional enemy." 30 

"A fish hawk, ancient foe of the bass, swooped 

down." 66 

"Old Black Bass steeled his mighty heart for 
the conflict." 89 




DAM the spirit of the fisherman. I 
Ij sit by the riverside and hear the 

splash of trout in the gray morning. 
I go to the lake at evening and see the bass 
flash under the sweeping bough of the 
birch. I dream my dreams of fish. 

I enter the city office when the breath 
of May blows warm and whisper to those 
who love me of white falls and quiet waters 
in the vastness of open spaces. 

I hover over the campfire where my 
kindred are gathered and listen to their tales 
of great catches, of unnamed winding 
rivers, of fish that fight in waters that are 
cold. 

I am as old as the River Nile, where the 
ancient Pharos cast their lines among the 

7 



8 OLD BLACK BASS 

rushes; I am as young as the barefoot boy 
hurrying across the meadow with his paw- 
paw pole. 

I have my loves and my hates. No words 
can record my aversion for the person (is 
he man or devil?) who snares the little fish 
under size, whose abortive selfishness leads 
him to continue when the creel is full and 
who catches the mother at spawning time. 
To me he is the human wolverine, the fish 
glutton; and for him I have loathing as 
well as hate. 

But there is another who angles for love — 
love of the blue-green softness of lake, love 
of cold hurrying waters, love of the camp- 
fire below the pines. He matches his in- 
genuity with the cleverness of fish, and gives 
them a chance. He knows when he has 
caught enough, and he is tender with the 
little ones. To him I would dedicate this 
tale. 

In it I shall tell of Old Black Bass as I 
have seen him on dusky evenings where the 
whippoorwill calls. 

Old Black Bass was the leader of his 
school. He was big of body, aggressive of 
spirit, and bold. With him was cleverness 



THE LURE 9 

in eluding the canniest angler, and his life 
knew both sorrow and joy, love and bitter- 
ness. 

If the reading of his story leads you to 
greater love of the waters, to a better under- 
standing of all his kindred, and to manifest 
forever the attitude of the true sportsman, 
then I, the spirit of the fisherman, shall be 
satisfied. 




OHE moon was first a luminous cres- 
cent etched sharply against the soft 
blue of the sky. Then it came full 
and round and threw a silver mantle like 
a sheer bridal veil over the placid waters of 
the lake. It waned with the nights to a pale 
shadow, one side sheared away. Finally it 
vanished, and darkness was over the waters. 
During the major part of its phases, as 
it waxed and waned, a black bass in the 
mouth of a quiet cove had kept a long racial 
vigil. Fifteen yards from shore, she had 
guarded her spawn bed with a vigilance 
absolute and ceaseless. Tired she grew, 
yes ; but neglectful, never. She was one of 



12 OLD BLACK BASS 

the mothers of the world, paying in this 
watchfulness her travail for the life so soon 
to be. 

She was a large-mouth. And while 
slender of form, she was agile and strong. 
Her speed as she darted at an approaching 
enemy was as the swiftness of light; yet as 
she hung above the nest in the quiet hours 
with slight movement save the gentle un- 
dulation of pectoral and pelvic fins, she was 
a daughter of the Graces, beautifully 
formed. 

Many times during those days of vigil a 
great bass slipped from his position as outer 
guard fifteen feet away and approached her 
with friendliness and respect. Where she 
was slender he was mighty; while she was 
gentle he was pugnacious and aggressive; 
where she was light of color he was exces- 
sively dark. But when they came together 
it was on a plane of equality, for the eggs on 
the nest she had deposited and he had 
fertilized ; they should be the parents of the 
spawn. 

Seeing the two together on the occasions 
when he hung over the nest with her, one 
knew that the spawn from this union should 




'Male and female kept racial vigil over the nest." 



THE SPAWN 13 

be the product of nature's choicest selection, 
for she on her side and he on his were 
typical of the best of the species. 

It was on a memorable morning twenty- 
two days after the eggs were deposited that 
the spawn began to hatch. Little tiny 
chubs one fourth of an inch long were in 
the water where days before the mother 
had kept watch over stillness; small wee 
bits of protoplasm that expressed in random 
reflex movement the life that had been given 
to them. 

Four days passed. As morning advanced 
the little minnows rose nearer the surface 
and were warmed; at evening they settled 
back on the nest. The mother kept up a 
circling guard, going round and round the 
school. 

Slowly the tiny sac disappeared from 
their bodies. They came clean ; their birth 
process was over. Then for the first time 
the mother bass showed signs of restlessness. 
It was as if, her task nearly finished, she 
fretted to be free: just as the collie, the 
sheep corralled, yawns her boredom and 
whimpers for the distant places. 

She watched the inchoate movements of 



14 OLD BLACK BASS 

the tiny progeny with more and more a 
turning of her body toward the still cold 
waters of the lake. Within her was the deep 
and formless call of nature, to be away. 

More with imperious movements of the 
body than by any conscious guidance the 
parent directed her tiny offspring toward 
the shore. They did not follow ; they were 
swept along by the swirling currents created 
by her activity. 

They moved toward the base of the cove. 
Arriving there, she circled the spot slowly, 
again watchful and alert, inspecting for 
dangers the new quarters. 

No sooner was her tail turned than the 
little followers lifted to the warmer surface 
water. A belted kingfisher dropped from 
a tamarack and with whir of wings struck 
the water. Its aim was true, and the family 
was lessened by three. 

The mother bass whirled and reflexively 
darted for the deep ; then came back trem- 
bling to the terrified school. For a moment 
the fret to be away was swallowed up in 
the old maternal solicitude. 

But for a moment only. She huddled the 
little ones together, then hung motionless 



THE SPAWN 15 

above them. Suddenly she looked tired. 
There was noticeable now a leanness of 
body, a weariness about the heavy cartilage 
of her mouth. Her eyes were spent. 
Through them she surveyed the little ones, 
and sadly, as though the moment of farewell 
occasioned a wordless regret. Anxiety was 
there too, as if she hesitated to leave them 
unprotected in a life so full of peril. 

A minute passed, while mother surveyed 
her tiny spawn. Then a soft wind moved on 
the face of the waters. Tiny wavelets 
riffled the surface and broke in soft 
cadence on the pebbly shore. 

It was a call, a signal to the cool feeding 
grounds. From the mother bass the droop 
disappeared, weariness vanished. She 
seemed to knit together with a growing 
energy. She lifted nearer the surface, 
swung about and headed out. The opening 
and closing of gills, a flash of the supple 
caudal fin, and she was gone. 

She had said farewell, leaving her little 
ones to grow and develop according to the 
form and purpose determined for them by 
nature, the great mother of us all. 



II 




m 



HE family of tiny bass was to make 

its home in the cove. Nor was ever 

a mansion built for the residence of 

man more beautiful than this sheltered 

recess. 

Lone Pine Lake is itself worthy of full- 
est acquaintance. It is a lake of the high 
mountains, formed partly by nature, aided 
by a three-foot dyke of man's building at 
the outlet, and fed by a blue stream from the 
north. 

This dyke of man's making accounts for 
many of the fascinating surprises of the 
lake. Before it was built, some of what is 
now water was then sloping meadow, 

i6 



INFANCY 17 

crossed and criscrossed by broad stone 
fences. Now, these ribs of stone run far 
into the lake, wonderful as home of rock 
bass, splendid means whereby the angler 
may wade to deeper water, and magic reefs 
for white waves in a high wind. 

Surrounding the entire body of water are 
the trees: slender tamaracks lifting like 
artists' brushes dipped in pale green paint 
on the broad canvas of the sky; white 
birches with boles eight and ten inches in 
diameter, and smooth as the throat of a 
swan; oaks with the omnipresent sprouts 
about their bases ; and beech, their branches 
sweeping low. 

The water rises slightly in winter and 
falls in summer, so that at fishing time there 
is a rim around the lake bare of foliage, 
and covered here with great black bowlders, 
there with pebbles and sand. 

The lake itself changes with the whim of 
the day. Of early morning it lies still and 
warm, a white fog playing yard high over 
the surface. As the sun touches it the mist 
vanishes and the waters lie in the embrace 
of light like a green park close-mown. 

Mid-afternoon finds the breezes playing 



i8 OLD BLACK BASS 

over the surface, sending soft waves to lap 
the shore, catching up riffles far out and 
causing them to leap and fall like tiny 
whitecaps. 

Water-bugs form in groups near the shore 
and swim indolently, their black glossy 
backs like ebony buttons on a plush table. 
Water Striders hop awkwardly about, 
and the Ephemerid flies low over the water. 

Of evening there is about the whole lake 
the mysterious air of life. Gnats drop into 
the water to be snapped up by smaller fry. 
From 'way up in the river inlet the bullfrog 
croaks a hoarse mating call. Trees cast a 
darkening shadow, then none at all. The 
hum of insects is in the air. A luckless moth 
drops down, and instantly there is a swirl 
of water and the open mouth of a great bass. 
Along pickerel, tapering as an Indian bow, 
leaps up and disappears, leaving scarcely a 
ripple behind. 

It was on this lake, and in a cove of it, 
that the mother bass, her spawning over, 
left her family. The bottom here tapered 
gently to the shore. A great bowlder, half 
out of water and near the bank, provided 
crannies and a cool shade. A small white 



INFANCY 19 

birch grew low, and its branches hung 
partly over the water. 

For a few days the school of tiny bass 
did little more than wriggle in the water. 
They partook of no food. It was as if there 
was that within them that sustained life and 
impelled growth without sustenance. Even 
as a grain of wheat placed in water seems 
to have life within it that, coupled with the 
nourishment it receives from the water, will 
enable it to sprout and reach a certain 
growth, so the tiny bass seemed to develop 
from within save as the water sustained 
them. 

Then faint hunger pangs quickened them 
and they fed, now on minute Crustacea to be 
found on the bottom, now on insect larvae 
that drifted through the water, and occa- 
sionally on the small insects that fell upon 
the surface. 

For three months their history is a record 
en masse. They lived together in a group 
no one member of which was particularly 
set apart from the others. Seen from above, 
the school resembled the shadow of a fragile 
shawl thrown on the surface of the water. 
Of individuation, whereby one became 



20 OLD BLACK BASS 

marked or distinguished from the other, 
there was none. They were a single family, 
and their home was the common water. 

Yet even in this early period some mys- 
terious selective agency seemed interfering 
with life. Without apparent cause, many 
turned their bellies up and died. They rose 
to the top and floated there, tiny white 
bodies an inch long, with big heads and 
slight crimson slits at the under gills. Na- 
ture had rejected these as unfit. 

Others fared differently. When the lake 
was unusually rough and the waves swept 
shoreward, they were carried to the land. 
They could not stem the inward current; 
and once cast ashore they could not flap back 
down. They were accordingly left to die, 
far up on the dry. It was the price nature 
exacted for their weakness. 

Twice havoc was wrought in another and 
more tragic manner. On a memorable 
afternoon a great black shape slipped 
through the water and bore down on the 
school. He swam aggressively, and struck 
with the speed of wind. When his great 
jaws closed five of the little school slid down 
his wide gullet. 



INFANCY 21 

He hung for a moment, alert for sight of 
others, then jerked about and continued on 
his way. The spirit that broods over the 
waters saw his raid and smiled : he was the 
father of the school, and had fed on his 
own young. 

Six days after this something else hap- 
pened. It was an occurrence to start reflec- 
tion over the accomplishment of maturity; 
to cause one to think that all nature is 
against the young, and that the few 
who survive and reach adulthood have 
achieved a signal victory not vouchsafed to 
the many. 

A second bass swam into the cove, paler 
of color than the first, and more slender. 
She bore the markings of the female, for 
she was the mother of the spawn. 

With sure confidence she charged the 
school. Some leaped clear of the water in 
their convulsive terror to escape. Others 
darted for the protection of the friendly 
bowlder, to hang trembling in its crevices. 
But a few were less nimble. For their 
inability to escape they paid the forfeit that 
sooner or later nature ever exacts from all 
of her children less fitted than others to sur- 



22 OLD BLACK BASS 

vive : they reposed as food in the very body 
where four months before they had lain as 
eggs ready for the spawn. 

Nor was this heartless; it is merely na- 
ture's way. With the bass there is no such 
organ as memory in the sense in which we 
understand the term. The bass has no 
cortex, and the cortex is the brain center in 
which our memories are stored. 

With the fish memory is physiological. 
In the presence of external stimuli they are 
roused to anger or lulled to contentment 
or stirred to regard. But when the external 
factors are removed they do not recall the 
state produced by them, as men do. In joy 
man recalls his sorrow; in joy the bass 
merely and only experiences joy. 

Man's mind expresses itself in three 
directions : toward the past, which is mem- 
ory; toward the present, which is realiza- 
tion ; and toward the future, which is antici- 
pation. With the bass there is only the 
present. 

So in this case. When the pressure of 
her eggs led the mother bass to deposit them, 
the action called forth in her the whole 
series of movements connected with the 



INFANCY 23 

maternal process. She prepared and pro- 
tected her nest, and guarded the young four 
days, but when she bade them farewell the 
set of instincts called out by the natal proc- 
esses vanished with her going. 

Maternity over, she was again the bold 
feeder. In the presence of her own young 
she now felt only the hunger call. Memory 
of them she had none; so on them she fed 
and was satisfied.^ 

So it was with this school, that in the 
midst of life there was always death. Na- 
ture eliminated the unfit. Sometimes by 
disease from within, or by waves from with- 
out; or, again, by the foraging of carnivori, 
the school was cut down. 

But always some escaped. Nature kills, 
but nature makes provision for life. While 
some perished others thrived. And through 
the very activity expended in escaping death 
they developed a greater hardihood than 
had their lives been an existence of security. 
They fought to live, and the fighting made 
them fit to live. 

So passed five months. And at the end 

iPor a fuller diicussion of the psychology of fish, the reader is referred to the 
admirable article in The Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1899, pp, 
377ff. 



24 OLD BLACK BASS 

the family was not a mass struggling col- 
lectively; it was an aggregate of individuals, 
each expressive both of the native tendencies 
born with his organism and of the scars he 
had received in his own life struggles. 

Because of this individuation the family 
may no longer be considered en masse, but 
separately, each as playing his distinct role 
in the great act we call life. 



Ill 




0ISH are not named at the beginning 
of life, as people are. When they 
finally are, the name is not a word, 
but an attitude. A fish's name to other fish 
is the mental impression they have of him, 
inarticulate but real. 

Leaper is the name of one of the fish of 
our school, not because he is so addressed 
by the others, but because the dominant 
thought of him is that he leaps through and 
out of the water more gracefully than any 
other member of the family. 

Had they been possessed of words, as we 
are, they would have named him accord- 
ingly. Lacking these, they simply had the 

25 



26 OLD BLACK BASS 

thought without the word symbol for it. 
But because this is a tale for men, human 
symbols must be used to indicate the fishes' 
thought. 

At the age of five months Old Black Bass 
was the largest member of his school. From 
tip to tip he measured six and one half 
inches. Furthermore he displayed a rugged 
hardihood that made him appear more ma- 
ture and formidable than his fellows. 

He was on this morning occupying his 
favorite place by the great bowlder and 
just beneath the overhanging bough of the 
birch. The spot was favored by him, since 
the bowlder provided protection and the 
bough many luscious morsels; and it was 
possessed by him because his size enabled 
him to get what he should want. 

The day was warm. On the bank beyond 
the bowlder sounds of laughter punctuated 
the awkward efforts of a little baby learning 
to walk. The little fellow toddled toward 
the shore line and with a great show of 
effort tossed a golden orange into the 
water. 

Revolving round and round, it floated 
gayly out to the big rock. Old Black Bass 



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY 27 

sank deeper to avoid any possible danger, 
then rose tentatively for closer inspection. 

The orange seemed harmless. He even 
punched it with his nose, looking ridicu- 
lously serious the while. Behind him and 
beneath there was a great rush: the entire 
school was advancing to explore. 

Leaper the Delightful, always frolicsome 
and gay, darted upward and with swirl of 
tail spun the sphere round and round. He 
darted beyond it and returned ; leaped clear 
of the water and encircled it, his small body 
flashing in the sun. 

It became a game. Nick-fin struck from 
beneath and the orange bobbed up and 
down. Even little Sidie, who had not been 
acting just right of late, joined in the sport. 
And, seeing her coming, Leaper cleared the 
way for her so she might have a free chance 
clear of the others. 

The little fellows were sportive. They 
leaped clear of the water and came down 
panting but thrilled. They churned the 
surface to a tiny turmoil at which they grew 
excited and fled only to return again. 

The game then took on the nature of a 
training. For just as among humans play 



28 OLD BLACK BASS 

is often a preparation for life where the girl 
with her dolls learns the art of motherhood 
and the boy with his gun the knack of 
defense, so now the play became a prepara- 
tion for later life. 

They struck at the orange. From all 
angles they darted for it, measuring dis- 
tance, calculating velocity, and ever striving 
for accuracy. All except Old Black Bass. 

When the play first began he subsided 
and drew apart. From his vantage he 
watched with what amounted to downright 
disdain the caperings of his brothers and 
sisters. Only once did he seem pleased — 
when Leaper struck wild. 

It was not until Gloria struck that the 
thing seemed to grow personal with him. 
But when she advanced, missed, and re- 
turned in some confusion, he darted im- 
periously out. 

He had a way of attracting attention, for 
at five months he was a grandstander. Now 
all retired to give him room. And he 
struck. He struck with uncommon preci- 
sion and strength, sending the orange whirl- 
ing a full foot. He turned, cast a veiled 
glance at Gloria, and swam away. 



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY 29 

Then tragedy stalked in. Near the bot- 
tom of the bowlder was an oblong cavity 
where stone and earth failed to meet. It 
formed a blind tunnel seven inches high 
and four wide in along the side of the rock. 

This tunnel was eschewed by all, yet all 
were itchingly curious about it, for the fish 
is possessed of a constant curiosity. So 
when all were together and one started to 
enter it, there was such a storm of dis- 
approval as to keep him out. 

But when the game started about the 
orange White Belly slunk away, circled the 
bowlder, came again in sight of the others 
and finding himself unobserved, slipped 
into the cave. 

It was wonderful within. The bowlder 
on the right was slick and black; the earth 
to the left smooth and cool. It was a relief 
from the heat without. He went clear to 
the end and turned. The entrance a yard 
away showed blue and beautiful. 

He decided to remain a while. He 
flapped his tail, and in the narrow confines 
the water swirled about him. He did this 
again and again, then rested, thinking of 
the triumph he should achieve on his return 



30 OLD BLACK BASS 

to the school. There should be a major rush 
to the cave when he should tell ; but nothing 
could take from him the distinction of hav- 
ing been first to enter and explore. 

His tail was to the entrance now, but he 
knew when the small opening was darkened. 
He whirled quickly, sudden unaccountable 
alarm rushing over him. 

In the entrance was a turtle; a small, 
ugly, fiery-eyed little reptile that was re- 
garding him intently, its expression made 
hideous by the underthrust of its lower jaw. 

White Belly was palpitant with terror. 
This object he had always feared, not so 
much because he had learned to fear it, but 
because he was born afraid of it, as man is 
of a snake. His small bivalvular heart 
throbbed with his terror. 

The turtle's look became cunning. Its 
beady eyes glowed with satisfaction. It 
poised itself like a hand placed over the 
entrance, its neck thrust forward, its short 
front legs keeping it in position. 

With a violent propulsive movement of 
his tail White Belly scudded swiftly for a 
momentary opening between the reptile's 
head and left fore foot. 




'The bass was terrified at sight of this traditional enemy." 



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY 31 

But quick as he was the turtle was swifter. 
Its toothless beak fell like a hammer and 
stopped the rush, sending the little bass 
shuddering backward. 

The shock halted him, and for a moment 
he delayed ; but not the turtle. It was quick 
to seize its advantage, and paddled cannily 
up the tunnel. Like a pugilist pressed on 
before he recovers from a blow, White 
Belly tried desperately to recover and evade 
the oncoming foe. He hurried the two feet 
to the end of the channel in a wild blind 
effort; turned and darted swiftly from side 
to side as if to unsettle his antagonist's pur- 
pose. 

But on it came. A swift-moving leg 
seemed unexpectedly right under the fish. 
A sharp black claw caught at the left gills 
and tore them. A blood vessel broke, and 
the water carried a dark stain. 

He was but five months old. The average 
life of a bass is eight years and that of man 
forty. So comparatively White Belly was 
the age of a two and a half year old child. 
He was no match in cleverness or strength 
for this traditional enemy. 

The loss of blood both weakened and 



32 OLD BLACK BASS 

terrified him. He turned partly on his side, 
tried desperately to right himself and flee, 
but could not. The round shape became 
more confident. A long stringy neck 
covered with dark loose skin extended, and 
on it the horny head. The mouth opened, 
showing red and toothless. 

It closed just back of the bass's dorsal. 
He made a last struggle, wriggling as one 
with tail held stationary, but he did it with- 
out hope. 

Outside the cave the sport with the orange 
had been broken up by another and more 
novel diversion. The churning of the 
water caused by the sport had caught the 
attention of one with the picnicking party 
who had brought his tackle along. 

Something more wonderful than the 
orange was now in the water though it did 
not float as the orange floated. It appeared 
to be a little fish like themselves, only it fell 
on the water far out and then swam zigzag 
fashion for the shore. It did this many 
times. 

All the little bass were curious about this 
strange sight; but Leaper especially was 
tantalized beyond endurance. Especially as 



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY 33 

the funny little minnow raked above his 
head and started for the shore, did he feel 
an irrepressible urge to follow it — like a 
cat that simply must chase the vanishing 
ball. 

He made a quick strike; but as most of 
his play practice had been with stationary 
objects, he missed. But undismayed he 
leaped clear of the water and rejoined his 
comrades. 

Hump Back, so called because while the 
backs of the others arched but slightly his 
was pronouncedly convex, saw Leaper's 
effort and himself resolved to try. 

On the next appearance of the object he 
struck. His aim was true, but his subse- 
quent actions were peculiar. Instead of 
returning, he followed his strike to the shore 
and disappeared. 

An interval of silence. Then a disap- 
pointed voice on the shore which the fish 
did not hear or hearing would not have 
understood, spoke its irritation. 

"Darnl Undersize!" 

"Goin' to throw 'im back?" another voice 
queried. 

"Yes. Not worth scalin'." 



34 OLD BLACK BASS 

He tore the hook from the fragile mouth, 
held the little bass up, and as a man would 
strike a handball, batted him back into the 
water. 

He turned over and over, then lay gasp- 
ing. The cartilage of his mouth was torn, 
but this gave him no pain. The pain he 
felt was in his side. Where the hand had 
struck him the scales were ruffled and 
broken, causing dull irritation. The water' 
did not slip from him here, but clung to his 
skin and fretted him. His companions 
swam nearer and looked at him curiously, 
but understood not — save one. 

The next day the pain was more acute. 
The reason was that poison in the water had 
searched out the wound and infected it. A 
red abrasion appeared, the scales dropping 
away. 

Vainly he tried to escape. He swam 
against small stones to remove it; whipped 
his small tail to shake it off. But it grew 
worse. It spread. The pain and the hectic 
activity wore him down. 

The third day he swam nearer and nearer 
the surface. He turned belly up, and at 
times gulped air through his gills. But he 



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY 35 

was conquered. On the fourth day he was 
still. 

Only Sidie had understood his struggle, 
and she but partly. From the fourth month 
she had not been well. Something within 
her gave way then, and she found great 
difficulty in swimming erect. In spite of 
her efforts she would turn partly on her 
side. 

None knew the effort she made to over- 
come this. But when she saw Hump Back, 
her own malady enabled her to compre- 
hend something of his struggles. Near him 
the last day she tried to learn something of 
his mishap, but got only the impression that 
somewhere on the shore had been an enemy 
more terrible than all others. 

It was then that the spirit which broods 
over the waters smiled in cynicism, for he 
knew that the creature which among men is 
called "highest" may be the greatest 
enemy of the fish. For while the turtle kills 
for food, this "highest" often mangles and 
kills needlessly and through his own irrita- 
tion. 

If you should ever visit Lone Pine Lake, 
you will find there anglers you would be 



36 OLD BLACK BASS 

glad to know. But a grumbler often fishes 
there, whose plaint is the growing scarcity 
of fish. He is the man who caused the death 
of Hump Back; and what he did to Hump 
Back he has done to many others. 



IV 




Q 



HE development of Old Black Bass 

that first year illustrates the law that 

to him that hath shall be given and 

from him that hath not shall be taken av^ay 

even that which he hath. 

By some queer quirk of physical heredity 
he had entered into the inheritance of a 
body destined to make him a fish among ten 
thousand. Already his proportions were 
exceptional. His body was richly dark 
with the glow of unimpaired health. The 
maxillary of his large mouth swept back 
well behind the eye, and made his strike 
for food deadly sure. His thick, flat back 
was ribbed with nine sharp spines, and be- 
37 



38 OLD BLACK BASS 

hind them the thirteen rays flared in a 
graceful arch. Ten rows of glossy scales 
were on his cheek and sixty-eight adown 
the smooth lateral line of his body. When 
he moved through the water it was with 
the precision of a highly complex but won- 
derfully efficient machine. 

True he was awkward, for the bass is 
seldom a graceful fish, but in his very awk- 
wardness was suggestion of smoldering 
strength, like the awkward but sleeping 
muscularity of the untamed lumber- 
jack. 

And having this body through inherit- 
ance, more accrued to him as a result of it. 
The best feeding grounds about the cove he 
took by right of prowess. While the others 
were limited in their range, his untiring 
energy enabled him to forage farther and 
longer than they, and therefore fare better. 
His strike at swimming luckless frogs was 
speedier and more sure; and when many 
made for the same morsel, his strength let 
him crowd the others away and gobble it 
down. 

Consequently, he seldom went hungry. 
While the youthful appetites of the others 



NATURAL SELECTION 39 

often were unappeased, his maw was ever 
full. He grew faster than they, not alone 
because he was born to a greater size but 
also because the abundance of his food 
added new tissue to his frame. 

But, as so often happens to the one who 
finds himself able to overcome all obstacles 
and triumph over his kind, his very suc- 
cesses proved elements in his failure. By 
saving his life he was in a fair way to lose 
it. 

Always inclined to feel superior, he be- 
came arrogant with his victories. He grew 
domineering. Imperiously he slashed his 
brothers and sisters, intolerant of their 
weakness and contemptuous of their help- 
fulness to each other. Yet with all his im- 
periousness the same was true of him as of 
men with similar dispositions: he was in- 
satiable in his desire for flattery and adula- 
tion. He wanted to be admired, feared, 
praised, deferred to, respected, acclaimed. 

There were in the school some who were 
willing to accord him all these, just as 
among men there are always kotowers to 
the supercilious. But others were less 
deferential. Especially Leaper. Genial 



40 OLD BLACK BASS 

and social, a good loser as well as a gener- 
ous victor, he embodied that fine combina- 
tion of ambition and sociality so admirable 
in the human realm. To him further had 
been vouchsafed a mild and subtle sense of 
humor that played gayly over the whole of 
life. 

Old Black Bass struck violently at a par- 
ticle fallen into the water, and came down 
shaking from his jaws the empty shell of a 
locust blown from afar on the wind. His 
mortification at this lack of judgment was so 
manifest that Leaper could not refrain from 
opening and closing his mouth in lugubrious 
imitation. 

A ripple of amusement passed over the 
school. To check it at the very outset Old 
Black Bass whirled belligerently, and many 
subsided quickly. But Leaper knew no 
fear. With another dolorous opening and 
closing of his mouth he held his place. Con- 
flict was imminent when Gloria slipped be- 
tween them and flashed her shapely body 
through the air. But though this was diver- 
sion, the entire school sensed that here was 
enmity that should never die. 

Old Black Bass knew then that in the 



NATURAL SELECTION 41 

school might be found here and there an 
attitude toward him not of admiration ; and 
brooding alone that evening he chewed the 
cud of his mortification and found it bitter. 
But, like many of his type among the higher 
vertebrates, he concluded that the needed 
thing was a more complete showing of his 
prowess, and so bided his time. 

Then a change came over nature, slight 
at first but more apparent with the hurrying 
days. Out on the shore the tamaracks lost 
their luscious green and aged ; leaves of the 
birch fell and skimmed like frail canoes 
over the water ; oak leaves turned brown and 
rattled in the biting wind. 

It was the approach of winter. Notice- 
able first in the lake was the absence of food. 
No longer did the breeze come freighted 
with its burden of insects. Gnats ceased to 
fall. Only little frogs, green and tender, 
hung in the water's edge. In the shallows 
it was cold. 

One day Old Black Bass was nosing close 
in when a tiny snake descried him and 
wriggled frantically for the shore. But the 
rush of the carnivore was too swift. 
Knotted into a ball the little reptile felt the 



42 OLD BLACK BASS 

crunch of sharp teeth and slid down 
through warm darkness. 

Water grew colder. But the fish were 
not dismayed. For with a knowledge that 
came to them from out the far past they 
knew that this was in the order of nature. 
Just as geese honk wedge-shaped to the 
South with changing wind, so the bass 
moved toward the deep. 

Gregarious they were, as is the prairie 
dog or the beaver; and this instinct kept 
the school together. Far out in the water 
was a break in the wide wall of a great stone 
fence, and here they made their winter 
quarters. 

Then began an ordeal of endurance 
which nature must have considered her 
Great Eliminator. Just as with men civil 
service examinations are held to weed out 
the less capable and select the most efficient 
for placement, so nature would use winter 
on the school of bass to eliminate the weak 
and select those of greatest hardihood to 
perpetuate the species. 

Sidie was the first to go. The ailment 
which had not been severe enough to elimi- 
nate her when the water was warm and the 



NATURAL SELECTION 43 

food plentiful, soon put her out of the race 
in this new environment. And closely fol- 
lowing her went five more. Even Leaper 
felt the pinch of the first month. 

But not Old Black Bass. His solitary dis- 
position often sent him to forage alone. His 
strength, furthermore, enabled him to go 
farther than the others, enlarging the di- 
ameter of his feeding-ground. 

On a day he made a discovery. Follow- 
ing a stone fence in search of food, he saw 
in a cranny a small sunfish. A voice from 
within told him he should be but mildly 
interested here, but the hunger urge silenced 
the voice. 

He bore down. The little fish should 
have slipped farther back into the protec- 
tion of the stones, but its fear blurred its 
instinct. It darted out and circled, trust- 
ing to its swiftness. But with mouth open 
and sharp teeth bare, the carnivore con- 
quered. The sharp spines of the little fish 
caused a stabbing pain in his stomach, but 
the comforting bulk meant more. He swam 
back to his companions with unruffled com- 
placence. 

Leaper and Gloria were together, and the 



44 OLD BLACK BASS 

sight angered him. He rushed Leaper and 
by superior strength drove him away. 
Then he returned to Gloria and she slipped 
up to him, extending her mouth till it 
touched his side. He hung in contentment, 
fanning the water with pectoral and pelvic 
fins. 

The black bass can accommodate himself 
to a wide range of water variation. He 
will live with ice above him, and thrive 
when the temperature of his medium is lOO 
degrees Fahrenheit. So now: It was not 
the water so much that troubled the school ; 
it was hunger. 

Hunger broods irritation ; irritation, con- 
flict. If Swarthy had been a human, he 
would have aspired to be a gunman; and 
doubtless Fusser would have enriched the 
ranks of the reformers. For while Swarthy 
was sullen and direct in his disposition and 
method, Fusser was forever trying to ar- 
range things. Her advice as to foraging was 
copious and inaccurate; her *^I-told-you- 
so's" were ceaseless. 

In the hunger and confinement this 
ubiquitous meddling infuriated Swarthy. 
A few weeks back he had been either too 



NATURAL SELECTION 45 

busy to notice it, or too satisfied to take it 
seriously. But now everything was magni- 
fied. Differences became mountainous; 
idiosyncrasies, insulting. 

The school was moving slowly and aim- 
lessly along the fence, the stones already 
bare and slick with the fanning of innumer- 
able fins, when Fusser began her customary 
interference. Food, she declared, might be 
found if they looked more carefully ; swim- 
ming slower would be much less tiring; the 
other side of the fence, as being toward the 
south, doubtless was much better. It was 
then that Swarthy broke. 

He rushed Fusser and gave her a sharp 
stab in the side. Surprised and indignant, 
she would have maneuvered for an argu- 
ment, but he wanted none. He rushed her 
again, viciously. Her method would have 
been to enlist group aid to curb individual 
depredations, but Swarthy was for direct 
action. He stabbed her with his spines. 

She sped here and there like a woman 
throwing up her hands in holy indignation 
and demanding that the social conscience 
awake. But, to her utter amazement, she 
found the very ones for whom she had done 



46 OLD BLACK BASS 

so much strangely unmoved. Swarthy 
kept after her. Finally she turned on him, 
as from time immemorial the pacifist has 
turned when cornered, and turning, gave 
Swarthy a taste of his own medicine. 

It was an hour later that the struggle 
ended ; but when it was over, both Swarthy 
and Fusser floated lifeless on the surface. 
For fish are no wiser than men : when nature 
would allow them to live they often elimi- 
nate themselves. 

Old Black Bass did not witness the con- 
flict. He was following a secret search for 
the distant sunfish. Since discovering the 
first one, he had returned again and again, 
and always with success. And the ease with 
which he procured food deepened his con- 
tempt for the others. 

But great pride usually comes just before 
a fall. And so now. In the very midst of 
his own foraging grounds Old Black Bass 
saw a stranger loitering; and seeing him was 
on the instant furiously angry. He tore vi- 
ciously forward, bent on utter destruction. 

The stranger was one of his own kind, a 
great black bass of five summers, confident 
and strong. On scales he would have 



NATURAL SELECTION 47 

weighed a pound for every year of his 
age. 

All fish are nearsighted, due to the con- 
vexity of the lense of the eye; so Old Black 
Bass was almost upon the intruder before he 
got his measure. Even then he kept on, so 
accustomed had he become to undisputed 
dominance. 

But the stranger was unafraid. Non- 
chalantly he turned, and with his thick mus- 
cular shoulder took the full blow. Like the 
pugilist who, to show his own invincibility 
and the other's weakness, turns his unpro- 
tected face full to his opponent. The blow 
shook the big bass not at all. He merely 
squared himself indolently to observe his 
attacker. For a moment they poised observ- 
ant. The older fish was gorged with food, 
else, large as he was. Old Black Bass would 
have been grist for a voracious mill. 

Then the big bass suppressed what would 
have amounted to a twinkle in his eye. He 
simulated a towering rage before which Old 
Black Bass shrank back. A churning of 
water, and he felt himself knocked into the 
air. He fell back, only to find his enemy 
waiting. He was as a cat playing with a 



48 OLD BLACK BASS 

mouse. He circled the smaller fish; rushed 
at him open-mouthed, only to stop short; 
flapped him with his tail and turned him 
over. With a final dash he struck mid-side 
and sent him careening. Then, boredly, he 
turned and continued along the fence. 

Old Black Bass cast an affrighted glance 
after him, then made to return to his school, 
only to find that in his efforts to escape he 
had drawn very near to it. A scant yard 
away Leaper and Gloria hugged a sharp 
rock. They had been frightened observers 
of the struggle. 

Knowledge that they had seen all occa- 
sioned the most bitter moment of Old Black 
Bass's life. A poor loser by disposition, he 
recked not that either Gloria or Leaper 
would have fared worse in the encounter 
than he. To him was only the bitter realiza- 
tion that they had witnessed his discom- 
fiture. When Gloria advanced gracefully 
to meet him, and even Leaper swam gener- 
ously over, he wheeled moodily and dis- 
appeared. 

That evening he was viciously irritable. 
For a fancied insult he struck in succession 
two of his companions, and with such force 



NATURAL SELECTION 49 

as to burst their air bladders. They wab- 
bled queerly, then flopped over and died. 

Rebellion began to brew. Black looks fol- 
lowed his movements, and groups of three 
and four knotted together here and there as 
if in consultation. But to each and all his 
bearing was a bold challenge of force. 
Alone of all the school Gloria seemed to 
fear him not at all. Indeed, it was as though 
his unconquerable temper drew from her 
an attitude of submission, a submission born 
not of fear but of admiration. As on an- 
other occasion, so now she swam up to him 
and touched his side lightly, her body 
squaring gracefully with his. 

Then came real winter. Snow flurried to 
the black water. Waves were lashed by a 
wind that whistled fiercely among the bare 
trees. The fish grew comatose. Their 
bodies chilled, energy seemed to vanish, 
and they lay close down as in a stupor. 

Two months they remained thus, feed- 
ing as though from within. Then great 
cosmic voices whispered to the world that 
spring was approaching. Unseen forces 
broke the bonds of winter and liberated the 
waters. 



50 OLD BLACK BASS 

The fish awoke. Instincts formed in the 
far racial past informed them of the change, 
and whispered to them of adulthood. They 
quickened. A smaller school because of the 
selections of nature, they yet were a fitter 
because only the hardy had survived. They 
leaped to the call of spring. 





VEN as in springtime newly bare- 
foot children run round and round 
the house in abandon of exhilara- 
tion, so the school of fish felt their spirits 
lift in unaccountable urge to frolic. 

April clouds dropped their warm showers 
on the water and the fish watched the funny 
disturbance and grew both excited and irre- 
pressibly playful. Their leapings added to 
the excitement; their rushing churned the 
water more than the rain. 

In very excess of exuberance a race was 
staged, not deliberately, for fish do not de- 
liberate, but spontaneously and reflexly, 
SI 



52 OLD BLACK BASS 

caused by the quick darting away of the 
supple Swift. 

Swift led at the start, slipping through 
the soft water like an arrow shot through 
the air. Spot saw her go and leaped in 
pursuit like the bounding bounce of a rab- 
bit. Clumsy and Red-eye, Old Black Bass, 
Leaper and Gloria, Wall-eye and Gap — the 
school was a fleeting shadow. 

Rocks flashed by, a broken birch was 
skirted so swiftly that the rearward ones 
scarce knew the cause of the swerving ; and 
leading the way was Swift. 

Swift of the flying waters, pectoral and 
ventral flat against her body, anal and rays 
of dorsal flared into a rudder, body whip- 
ping and straightening too rapidly for the 
eyel The wide caudal fin, like the leaves of 
a propeller, caught the water and flinging 
it back increased the velocity. 

She was enjoying it. Cool, energizing 
water touched her sides after the comatose 
winter and washed her clean. Impurities 
slipped away as carbon is blown from a 
valve. 

But close behind was Leaper, body a fly- 
ing arrow. Like a wing-footed racer put- 



EMERGENCE OF A BULLY 53 

ting himself on the stretch, he flung for- 
ward in hot pursuit. It was their race. 
The others fell back, unable to keep the 
pace. 

Leaper gained. Everything he had he 
used. And he gained another inch. His 
head was at Swift's tail and creeping slowly 
to her pectoral. Intoxication of achieve- 
ment gave him added energy. With great 
surge he flung forward. He would win! 

But have you ever seen Collie race with 
Greyhound? Then you know how Collie 
flattens out, tearing along, ears laid back. 
You know how she gains and creeps up. But 
you know more: the apparent ease with 
which the long lean body of the hound 
flexes, and the incredible speed that fol- 
lows! 

So it was with Swift. When Leaper 
nosed her pectoral, without apparent greater 
effort on her part she slipped away and 
left him. Then stopped and waited, twin- 
kling, to let him come along. 

The others overtook them finally, Old 
Black Bass feigning preoccupation to 
belittle Swift's and Leaper's achievement 
and minimize his own defeat. He dis- 



54 OLD BLACK BASS 

played no amazement or excitement as did 
the others, but fretted impatiently to be on. 

Straight ahead was a place of witchery 
for the bass. It was the kind of a spot to 
which their natures cried out a welcome, 
even as the human soul cries its welcome to 
spring; though why the bass loved a place 
like this they could not have told. 

It was an area of forming lily-pads, of 
incipient green; an acre of bottom unlike 
the rocky ledges, but coming luscious and 
rich. It was as yet too early for the full- 
formed pads and much of the food. But 
even so they recognized it as a place of inter- 
est and attraction, though they had never 
been there before. It was the Voice; the 
old Paleozoic Voice that first called to the 
fishes back in the dim age when vertebrates 
arose. 

In response to this voice the fish live and 
move and have their being. It is instinct. 
It is the call of food, of sex, of gregarious- 
ness, of sociality. Those without it perish, 
those having it obey. It called now to the 
feeding-ground. 

The spot was occupied, for the day was 
perfect for the fisherman. It was morning. 



EMERGENCE OF A BULLY 55 

but the sun was hidden ; it was warm, but a 
slight breeze made a dancing riffle. 

Scarce had the school entered the beguil- 
ing region when a gay lure struck the water 
before them. It lay motionless for a mo- 
ment, then began a whirling course through 
the water. It lifted, darted sidewise, 
dipped; it slackened speed, only to dart 
away. 

Gap saw the thing, and he was hungry. 
What with the lean feeding days just passed 
and the race, the white fiber of his stomach 
was but a contracted pouch. And here was 
food, enough to last long. 

He rose to it. But whether from sudden 
aversion to his kind, or from inexplicable 
love of shore, he closed on the lure and fol- 
lowed it to land. 

An interval and the plug came back. It 
was Leaper's turn. Not that he was so 
hungry; for three delicious hellgramites 
had been his luck the day before. But he 
was curious. He wanted to know what this 
thing felt like, acted like, tasted like. 

His tail swirled as he struck it and missed. 
He struck again, determined to satisfy him- 
self. He connected with the front of it with 



'56 OLD BLACK BASS 

his superior maxillary, knocking the lure 
clear out of the water. 

He was measurably satisfied. It was 
smooth and hard, whatever it was : the bump 
he had given it shook his head. He re- 
turned happily to the others and inter- 
estedly waited. 

Grinnie had preferred to watch rather 
than participate. Even when the thing 
spatted the water above her she remained 
fairly calm. But when it began to depart, 
something within utterly uncontrollable 
urged pursuit. She simply could not let it 
get away. She followed, propelled by the 
same instinct of movement that drives the 
cat after the vanishing ball. But she must 
have gone too far, for she never returned. 

Old Black Bass had been a surly spec- 
tator. He hungered not, neither did the 
lure fascinate him. He did feel a vast con- 
tempt for Leaper when he missed. But he 
remained aloof, simply watching. 

Time after time the lure raked the water. 
And finally it got on Old Black Bass's 
nerves. For what reason should this red 
and white intruder continue to frolic above 
him? And since when was it considered 



EMERGENCE OF A BULLY 57 

safe to so disturb him with impunity? 
Clearly this little whippersnapper needed 
the same lesson the others had so thoroughly 
learned. 

His anger mounted. He lifted slightly, 
determined to show it and all the others. 
When he struck he lunged savagely, open- 
ing and closing his mouth once, twice, with 
a queer '^chugging" sound. Only the inex- 
pertness of the angler saved Old Black Bass, 
for he was reeling the lure too swiftly, re- 
solved to change it for another; and the fish 
was not hooked. 

In vain did he cast again and again. Old 
Black Bass's anger had disquieted the 
school, and, refusing to rise again, they 
went on down the lake in search of a quieter 
spot. 

Of course the fish did not know it, but 
they had here given the only true answer to 
the question asked about so many camp fires 
of evenings: ^'Why does a bass strike an 
artificial lure?" And they had answered it 
by the motive which had impelled each to 
strike. 

The mind of man is obsessed by a desire 
to reduce everything to one simple formula. 



58 OLD BLACK BASS 

He wants one law for each class of phe- 
nomena: for gravitation, for motive, for 
worship, one principle for all true govern- 
ment. And he has sought for one motive to 
explain every fish's strike. 

He will never find it. One fish differs 
from another as one dog from another or 
one boy differs from another boy. The first 
boy throws a stone through the grocery- 
man's window because he is mad at the 
storekeeper; the second does the same thing 
because he is curious about the result; the 
third because he is hungry and wants the 
cookies behind the glass; and the fourth 
merely because he wants to throw and surg- 
ing nature is prompting him. 

So do fish strike. One is curious, one 
hungry, one instinctive in chasing a moving 
object, one is angry. No explanation that 
overlooks individual differences to seek a 
common motive will ever be accurate. To 
explain a strike is to know the nature of the 
one fish concerned. 

As the school continued on its way Old 
Black Bass alone retained his mood. He 
brooded over the lure. Not so much be- 
cause he missed it, for he had struck only 



EMERGENCE OF A BULLY 59 

to buffet. His brooding took him almost 
to the realm of abstract thought. For just 
as in the human realm a Shakespeare is 
born who knows more of English than the 
average man, or an Edison of electricity, or 
a Faraday of physics in general, so Old 
Black Bass was a genius of his species and 
as such capable of more than they. 

He came near to fathoming the secret of 
the artificial lure. Gap and Grinnie, who 
had not come back, were forgotten incidents 
with the others. But to Old Black Bass 
they gave point to an awful lesson. A craw- 
fish is capable of learning in forty lessons 
which is the best way to reach food; but 
Old Black Bass was already learning that 
not all that cavorts on the water is safe for 
food. 

From that day onward he discriminated 
his food. Before taking it he demanded of 
himself absolute knowledge of its nature. 
Was it alive, or only cleverly artificial? 
Was a slender line connected to it, or did it 
swim free? 

And this canniness put him in the class of 
rare bass of which the true angler dreams : 
the subtly clever fish who are wise beyond 



6o OLD BLACK BASS 

their kind, and whose wisdom rouses the 
true fisherman as a rare species lures the 
hunter. 

And while Old Black Bass did not 
know the ways of men in the great outside 
world, there was such a fisherman who 
should one day visit Lone Pine; and during 
that visit the wise bass and the clever angler 
should meet and contend. 

It was the day following that he did an- 
other of the despicable things that had 
earned for him the hatred of the entire 
school. A stone from an old fence slid 
quickly down and pinned Red-eye by the 
tail. Gloria hurried quickly to him to help, 
just as one ram will patiently endeavor to 
remove the thorn from the head of another. 

And she was succeeding. Red-eye was in 
a panic and struggling violently while 
Gloria nosed blindly at the stone. It gave, 
and the impinioned tail slipped a fraction. 

Then Old Black Bass did an atrocious 
thing. Why he did it, who knows? Per- 
haps in a dim way he was angered at him- 
self that he also had not been quick to aid; 
but not having proffered such aid, perhaps 
wanted to show that another kind of action 



EMERGENCE OF A BULLY 6i 

was preferable. He struck the helpless 
Red-eye. It was the act of a bully striking 
a bound man. Red-eye was stunned. He 
tried to free himself; but head up in his 
efforts, was struck again and killed. 

Leaper swam over and nosed his dead 
comrade; then turned and surveyed Old 
Black Bass with loathing, and the loathing 
he felt was in the hearts of all. Old Black 
Bass from that hour became a stranger 
though present. He was hated and shunned 
— but feared. 



VI 




QN this tale we must distinguish be- 
tween a language and a vocabulary. 
A phonetic vocabulary is possible 
only to man, for he alone possesses the 
physiological mechanism to use it. The 
parrot is excluded, for its vocabulary is to 
speech what a picture is to reality. 

Consequently, fish have no vocabulary; 
but they have a language. They talk just as 
the crow talks when it sends a warning, or 
the dog when it is hot on the scent. 

We must distinguish also between the 

mental state and the expression of such a 

state. The deaf mute may be angry, though 

he possess no vocabulary with which to up- 

62 



THE DESPOILERS 63 

braid ; may love, without being able to speak 
of it in words. 

So fish may know without giving voice 
to the knowledge, or feel without vocal ac- 
companiment. Since, however, this is the 
story of a fish designed for men to read, the 
mental and emotional states of the fish may 
be given their corresponding human word 
signs, so that all who read may understand. 

It is significant, therefore, that the central 
figure of this story was early given the name 
of Old Black Bass. In the human realm 
are boys old and mature beyond their years, 
lacking the playful spirit and looking at life 
through disillusioned eyes. These oldish 
boys are usually addressed as ^^Old Bill" or 
^'Old Tom" or '^Old Dave," the significance 
being that they are adult and oldish in their 
attitudes. 

Old Black Bass was so named because he 
was old in spirit, critical, lacking the play- 
ful attitude, fiercely belligerent when others 
were playfully sportive. He discouraged 
friendliness, scoffed at young helpfulness, 
hurt cruelly, killed without mercy. 

Men have two kinds of names, the Chris- 
tian name given to the young child, which is 



64 OLD BLACK BASS 

a sort of formal appellation for social con- 
venience; and the nickname, a spontaneous 
description of the impression one is making 
on his fellows. Thus his mother calls him 
Jacob, but to his fellow twelve-year-olds 
he is Fatty; the family Bible records him as 
Samuel, but to his playmates he is Red. 

Fish have no formal names, but all are 
nicknamed. One is Gloria because of the 
soft sweetness of her disposition, or Spot 
because of a queer mark on the cheek, or 
Gap on account of a funny gasping way he 
had of breathing. So it was Old Black 
Bass because he was adult in his reactions 
and sour in disposition. 

The school took advice from him, but 
were intimate not at all; respected his 
strength as fearing his anger; curbed the 
growing hatred toward him only as though 
biding a better time. 

In May came the mating urge. Just as 
spring draws the green leaf from dark twig, 
or morning the sunflower's heart to East, so 
the warming waters brought to life the 
mating impulse. On its coming Leaper and 
Gloria swam gayly away. Clumsy and 
Wall-eye, Spot and Wriggle, Darter and 



THE DESPOILERS 65 

Sober, after a day of strange restlessness, 
followed them. 

Some of the school remained unmoved 
by the pervasive call; for some bass spawn 
not till the second year. These looked upon 
the restlessness of their fellows and compre- 
hended it not. 

Old Black Bass had preened in his awk- 
ward way for the eye of Gloria, while Swift 
more than once nosed Leaper and frisked 
for shoreward waters. But he followed not, 
nor did Gloria have eye for Old Black Bass. 
When she swam off with Leaper, Old Black 
Bass went rapidly to Swift and with her 
went away. 

Back and to over the yard-wide bed went 
Swift and her companion, fanning clean 
the stones. With his sturdy nose Old Black 
Bass moved to one side the stones too large 
for the bed. The work was tedious and 
tiring, yet it was accomplished without 
injury to either. While the trout usually 
wears caudal fin and tail to the bone in mak- 
ing its nest, the bass accomplishes the same 
task without blood. 

The eggs were deposited on the stones, 
ten thousand in number. Old Black Bass 



66 OLD BLACK BASS 

fertilized them as they stuck there ; and the 
vigil of watchfulness began. On the third 
day as Swift hung above the nest an ancient 
enemy made quick attack. 

A fish hawk, foe of the bass, from his 
perch on an oak, saw the dark back moving 
ceaselessly under the water. He waited, 
tense for the swoop. Dark back rose nearer 
surface, and the hawk dropped. 

A clean kill was prevented only by Old 
Black Bass. He was faithful here because 
nature held him up. Scarce had he rushed 
Swift aside when there was quick spat above 
where she had been. But the disappointed 
hawk lifted and flapped away with empty 
talons. Just settled were they when a lively 
hellgramite fell on the water and sank to 
the bed. Swift eyed it angrily, but ap- 
proached it not. It was dragged clumsily 
over the stones, while she circled above it, 
extremely annoyed. Then it slipped shore- 
ward. 

An angler was out there, casting his lures. 
An out-of-season fisherman, for the law was 
on bass. But while many men strive to 
protect the fish, a few also break laws to 
catch them. 




"A fish hawk, ancient foe of the bass, swooped down." 



THE DESPOILERS 67 

The hellgramite came back. Swift flew 
at it, and retaining it by a sucking move- 
ment of the mouth bore it away and spat it 
far. Again it reappeared, only to be as 
speedily removed. 

Then came a frog, a striped pickerel frog 
of alluring color. It floated and kicked on 
the surface for full three minutes, then sank 
slowly down. It dropped to the nest and 
struggled there. The movements stirred 
hot anger and resentment in Swift, for they 
were displacing her eggs. 

Again she darted down. She got the frog 
and was bearing it away when a strange 
thing happened. The amphibian was 
cleverly fastened to an ingenious spring 
hook, which suddenly snapped apart and 
caught in her mouth. With the spring, the 
line tightened. The bass was jerked over 
backward, but rushed wildly while being 
reeled in. On the shore the angler took her 
from the hook and slipped her in a pocket 
of his hunting coat. Chuckling to himself, 
he moved on up the lake. 

The nest Swift left behind would thence- 
forth remain unguarded ; and this meant the 
death of the life she had placed there. She 



68 OLD BLACK BASS 

had laid ten thousand eggs, and with her go- 
ing went the hope that any from her spawn 
should live. Pickerel found the nest and 
fed upon the eggs; turtles crawled over it 
and broke them; dirt drifted over the stones 
and covered them up. 

But the fisherman was clever. Nine bass 
he caught that day, and five of them were 
from the nest, caught with the clever spring 
hook. One of the five was guarding seventy- 
five thousand eggs, and the other four a total 
of thirty-seven thousand. All told, he took 
the protection from one hundred and twelve 
thousand possible bass: one hundred and 
twelve thousand possible stock for the 
waters of the future — impoverishing the 
lake for the fisherman who should come 
after him — making obedience to law a 
handicap — contributing to the death of a 
species at its source. 

On his way home this man met the angler 
who the spring before had caused the death 
of Hump Back by roughly batting the un- 
offending little fish into the water, angered 
that it was undersize. 

"No luck, I bet," he growled. "Ain't 
no fish any more." 



THE DESPOILERS 69 

"Rotten luck," the former agreed. "Only 



nine." 



"Fishin' ain't what it used to be. Onct I 
could go out and git a mess in an hour." 

"Couldn't we, though?" the first agreed. 
"But them times ain't any more." 

"I'll say they ain't!" 

"Makes me tired." 

"Me too." 

"Too danged much fishin'." 

"And pollutin' the water." 

"City fellers!" 

"Dudes!" 

It was on the departure of Swift that Old 
Black Bass for the first time in his life felt 
a sense of incompleteness that made him 
vaguely sorrowful. He knew the cause of 
her departure : he had seen the line running 
shoreward from the frog. But it was not 
so much sorrow for her that he felt as it was 
some obscure troubling of his nature due 
to this new and sudden isolation. 

It was his first experience of the need of 
another. From out the depths his nature 
questioned him and revealed a haunting 
desire. New and vague, it yet disclosed 
that within him which, if called out, might 



70 OLD BLACK BASS 

make him over from the surly, morose na- 
ture to a disposition truly social and 
altruistic. 

For a day he lingered about the nest 
uncertain, even as a puppy whimpers about 
the litter-bed from which its companions 
have been taken. Then he swam slowly 
around the spot, turned toward the deep, 
and went his solitary way. 



VII 




0N the life of the bass time flies more 
rapidly than with men. For him one 
year is as five to man. Five times 
may the earth revolve around its parent 
body to age a boy as one revolution ages the 
fish. 

So with the rolling seasons the fish of 
our school rapidly matured. At five years 
they were transformed from the little 
quarter-inch wrigglers to mature specimens, 
comparable in age to men of twenty-five. 

Not, of course, that all were the same size. 
Among men the question is often asked as 
to how large a bass of five years really is. 
As if an answer could be given! At six 

71 



72 OLD BLACK BASS 

months the average may run around six 
inches ; at the Neosho station a bass known 
to be under eighteen months of age was 
found to weigh one pound nine and three- 
quarter ounces. 

But who would ask how large men are at 
twenty-five? The question could be put 
but not answered ; for men vary in size and 
weight. Some are tall, others short; some 
fat, others skinny; some big, others small. 
To strike an average would be to exclude 
all. 

It is even so with bass. In some Southern 
waters they have weighed at maturity as 
much as twenty-three pounds. The coun- 
try over they vary as men vary. But in 
Lone Pine he was a big bass that at five 
years should tip the scales at seven pounds. 

Not that all the members of our school 
ever reached maturity. A table of vital 
statistics among men will show that of one 
hundred thousand children of ten years, 
ninety-six thousand two hundred and 
eighty-five live to reach fifteen, ninety-three 
thousand three hundred and sixty-two reach 
nineteen, and only eight hundred and forty- 
seven reach ninety. 



A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 73 

So time ravages a school of fish, save that 
with them we have illustration of nature's 
vast design to perpetuate the species. For 
she has so fixed it that the more hazardous 
the infancy of a species the more numerous 
is the progeny to begin with. The average 
American family is 2.5, but human infants 
are protected, so that the species may keep 
alive on such a slender birth rate. 

But, what with the storm and the snake, 
the turtle and the pickerel, the frog and 
the hawk, the muskrat and the fisherman, 
the infancy of the fish is beset with peril. 
But nature provides for this by a more pro- 
lific birth rate. The carp deposits her eggs 
promiscuously, and without parental care 
they drift as the sport of the waters and the 
food of water life; but she lays as high as 
seven hundred thousand eggs, so that with 
all the hazards the species multiplies. The 
infancy of the bass being less perilous, ten 
thousand eggs per spawn are sufficient to 
keep the species alive. But even so, all life 
presents a fierce struggle of life with death. 
Time has taken the ten thousand eggs of 
the mother of our school and winnowed 
them till at five years there are but nineteen 



74 OLD BLACK BASS 

left. But of these nineteen Old Black Bass 
is undisputed ruler. His is a body of iron, 
black and tremendously strong. And of 
disposition he is indescribably bold. 

To the contemplative eye he would sug- 
gest the weight of seven pounds. His thick- 
ness, being one third of his length, gave him 
an unwieldy appearance that deceived the 
eye as to his real agility. Up on his flat 
back the nine spines of his dorsal flared like 
sharp bayonets, tapered by the thirteen rays 
behind. 

His great body was marked by a delicate 
lateral line, the fish's sense for locating the 
direction of shocks and for gauging the 
depth of water by its pressure. From gill 
to tail along this line were twenty-three 
rows of scales, seven above and sixteen be- 
low, and in each row were sixty-eight scales 
— dark scales glossy from an internal oint- 
ment, scales that flashed and glistened, an 
exoskeleton of protection. 

His head was the head of a fighter: cheek 
armored by ten rows of glistening scales; 
maxillary cleaving the head ; mouth gleam- 
ing with cruel teeth ; and cold, lidless eyes 
filled with brooding — eyes through which 



A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 75 

he surveyed the world with a boldness that 
challenged everything and bowed to noth- 
ing! 

Many were the factors that had fashioned 
him: physical heredity that had endowed 
him with measureless vigor, power that had 
awakened and nourished the sense of despot- 
ism, jealousy of Leaper that had soured him, 
defeat by the great bass that had em- 
bittered him. But at five years he swam at 
the head of his school, feared by many and 
hated by all. 

Leaper feared him not. And while of 
slighter build and less treacherous disposi- 
tion, he nevertheless was fish enough to give 
full account of himself in any encounter. 
And the encounter came on a morning in 
early May. 

Sober was tired and thin from the winter. 
With the school she was as yet almost too 
tired and listless to try for food. Leaper 
had foraged afar and with good success. 
Voracious as he was, his appetite was satis- 
fied. But near the pickerel weed off shore 
he ran down a frog, and with it in his 
mouth approached Sober. In front of her 
he dropped it for her to eat. It was an act 



76 OLD BLACK BASS 

similar to that of the rooster when he calls 
his hens to a morsel of his finding. 

With a kindly flap of the tail, Sober made 
for it, pathetically grateful to Leaper. But 
ere she could get it Old Black Bass rushed 
in and gobbled it down. 

It was too much even for Leaper. His 
position was similar to that of a suitor whose 
offering to his lady has been ruthlessly 
thrown out by an angry rival, and that be- 
fore the lady's very eyes. 

Sober dropped back, a questioning eye 
on Leaper. The others saw the act and 
closed in, curious as to the probable effect 
Old Black Bass, by his attitude of raw dis- 
dain, fanned the incident to open insult. He 
craved a break with Leaper. 

To Leaper it was more an affair of prin- 
ciple than a personal affront. He had been 
doing a good deed and his work had been 
broken in upon by selfishness. All the 
altruism born within him rose to the con- 
flict. 

The others sensed the impending strug- 
gle, for they remained near to watch. 
Nervousness was the portion of many; yet 
not a few meant to watch for signs that Old 



A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 77 

Black Bass was weakening, when they 
would join in and even old scores against 
him. 

Old Black Bass struck first, his pale, near- 
sighted eyes eager at the prospect. Mouth 
closed he thrust his hard snout against 
Leaper's side. The scales along the lateral 
line gave way at the impact, and red wound 
showed dull beneath it. 

Dorsal spines sharp drawn, Leaper 
lurched sidewise and brought the needle 
points tearing across the great fishes belly. 
Small, fine scales silvered the water. 

Angered at this vicious thrust. Old Black 
Bass charged mouth open, and his wicked 
teeth dragged Leaper's gill slits above the 
red blood vessels. He checked himself, 
only to receive in return a heavy thrust from 
Leaper's head. 

The first recklessness passed, the two 
settled down to a struggle of attrition. 
There were maneuvers for advantage, skill- 
ful retreats, deft feints, bold rushes, supple 
thrusts, wicked slashes; and again the 
maneuver for advantage. 

But from the first the outcome was deter- 
mined. No fish in the school could stand 



78 OLD BLACK BASS 

against Old Black Bass. And with fierce 
satisfaction he had known this from the 
beginning. 

But as the struggle dragged out, this 
satisfaction dwindled. Of what value the 
victory to him when it would occasion only 
regret among his kind? And how could he 
boast of it, when in his heart he knew he 
was in the wrong? For he did know this. 
The altruistic instinct is born within the 
fish, and he knows when he is violating it. 

At first he had thought that this mattered 
but little; that only the conquest counted. 
But as the fight waged and he fought with 
success more and more assured, it came over 
him that victory would mean defeat. It 
would make him more than ever an outcast. 
And what is triumph with no one to rejoice? 

But more than this came to him. He saw 
that Leaper was right and he was wrong; 
he sensed a greater than he before him, 
though the greater was weaker. Never — 
suddenly and clearly he knew it — could he 
hope to be Leaper's equal, though he should 
conquer him. For while he was an indi- 
vidualist, wrecking for his own pleasure, 
Leaper was defending the principle of 



A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 79 

altruism which the ages had taught his 
kind. 

Nor was this championing of altruism 
remarkable. It was as surely instinct with- 
in as the fighting tendency, though it was 
social. And because Old Black Bass had 
the social instinct in sufficient degree to 
enable him to appreciate this, he now under- 
stood that Leaper was greater than he, for 
he was defending the principles the ages 
had taught him.^ 

Of a sudden Leaper drove home a barb 
that tore cruelly, and at the pain Old Black 
Bass felt not so much anger as queer pleas- 
ure. He was sick of the role of the bully, 
sick of the rule of force, sick of hard glances, 
sick of Gloria's loathing. This fierce stab 
of pain was about what he deserved, and 
the fact that he was getting it gave him 
fierce satisfaction. 

In the human realm a man may in his 
high selfishness turn his back on the friend- 
liness of home and wander in a far country. 
But in time he drains life to the dregs and 
by the swineherd remembers his father's 
house. So Old Black Bass had ramped 

^Confer Jordaa*s Fithesy p. 4off., for dwcusiion of the instincts offish. 



8o OLD BLACK BASS 

through life with thought of self alone, only 
to sense vaguely now that real contentment 
is bound up with friendliness of his kind. 
Without this friendliness he should lose his 
life, even though he save it 

Leaper was coming at him when this 
lonely realization rose to trouble him; 
Leaper loved of his kind, Leaper fighting 
to the death for principle not so much of 
value to himself as to his species. But even 
as he came the grim light of his eye faded 
to weariness. His mouth sagged, and the 
torn gill slit quivered in fatigue. 

It was here that Old Black Bass sur- 
rendered. Instead of pressing his advan- 
tage he exposed himself to attack. But 
Leaper was too wearied to note it. Wearily 
he turned on his side, then desperately 
righted himself. The sympathy of the 
school went out to him, and as one they 
rose against Old Black Bass. They had 
not understood, of course, the awakening 
that had come over him. They knew only 
that he was killing their comrade. So they 
swarmed about him, buffeting him without 
mercy, rushing him fiercely; and drove him 
unresisting from the school. 



A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 8i 

By a great ledge of rock far out in the 
lake he found a sanctuary. Remorse was 
his, the first he had ever known. And lone- 
liness. Now it was denied him, he coveted 
the company of his kind. The friendly 
school dashes through the darkening waters, 
little acts denoting understanding and help- 
fulness — for all these a Voice cried out 
within him, an old Paleolithic voice that 
surged and troubled. 

Blindly he made his way back toward the 
school. Leaper was in the midst of it, 
object of solicitude from Gloria, subject 
of sympathy from all. When Old Black 
Bass entered the outer fringe, they surveyed 
him with resentment and renewed loathing. 
Dorsal spines flared on many backs, expect- 
ant of attack. 

But he struck not. He had learned that 
it is not by might or power, blustering or 
force, but by a kindly spirit that the world 
is gained. And realizing this, he coveted 
nothing more than a chance to let his fel- 
lows see that at last he understood. 

Chances came. A school of shiners was 
encountered, and he held back till the 
others had fed. Hot sun beat upon the 



82 OLD BLACK BASS 

waters, and there was scarce room in the 
shade of the rock for all. But he allowed 
them to take the better places. A turtle 
dropped among them, sliding from the 
stone, and with vigor he drove it away. A 
muskrat roiled the water about them till 
it felt the sudden thrust of his body. 

And these things he did from day to day, 
still unobtrusive, humble, and with ques- 
tioning. And in time the attitude toward 
him mellowed. Even fish despise not the 
broken and contrite spirit. Glances of 
anger changed to wonder, wonder to eager- 
ness, and eagerness to understanding. A 
place, small at first but increasingly large, 
he was making for himself in the affections 
of his kind. 

With one exception. Clumsy was like 
some people: he interpreted all nonresist- 
ance as cowardice. So when he saw the 
change in Old Black Bass he thought it 
fear. He thought the conflict with Leaper 
had tamed him to unwilling but discreet 
submission. When the big fish persisted in 
keeping his humble place, Clumsy went 
back to annoy him forward in hope of pro- 
voking a fight. He even dared once himself 



A PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 83 

to rush Old Black Bass, hoping to win re- 
pute for valor for doing it. And when he 
encountered patience, his daring increased : 
he tried to chase the big fellow from the 
school. 

But Old Black Bass bore it all without 
flare of resentment. At times he even wel- 
comed it, as giving chance to discipline his 
wild nature. Only once did he come near 
forgetting himself. Clumsy snatched a 
shiner from Old Black Bass that the latter 
was turning about to swallow head-first, 
and this was done in the presence of Gloria. 
It was open and flagrant insult. The great 
dorsal flared like bristles on the back of an 
Airedale. Opening jaws exposed gleaming 
teeth; there was movement of gathering 
muscles over the big body. 

But he subsided, the anger leaving him. 
And instead of sensing his danger, Clumsy 
concluded that henceforth he could do any- 
thing with impunity. In this conclusion, 
though he knew it not at the time, he was 
unwise, as time would tell. 

On a day the school was foraging down 
near the great dyke when it encountered a 
bass from a strange school — a wanderer, 



84 OLD BLACK BASS 

lost after a wild hour with an angler — a 
female of four years, graceful and comely. 
She joined the school with the eagerness of 
loneliness, and seeing the great and kindly 
bass, swam to him at once. 

Her whole manner toward him was of 
admiration and respect. She touched his 
side gently and waited, fanning with tawny 
pelvic fins. This was the first real friendli- 
ness Old Black Bass had ever encountered, 
directed at himself alone. It stirred some- 
thing deep within him. As if afraid of the 
ridicule of the school he looked quickly 
about him, but he saw only sympathy. 

He turned to the stranger, and she was 
stranger no longer. Her glance was so 
direct and open, her movement so ingenu- 
ously appealing, that from that hour she 
became Friendly, and by that name was 
ever known. Taking her place beside Old 
Black Bass, the school went leisurely 
through the sparkling waters. 



VIII 




0HE mating season of the fifth yearl 
Spring called forth the change. A 
mild pressure of roe caused the 
females to respond in subtle manner to the 
advances of the males, while males courted 
with all the gallantry and persistence of 
their kind. 

Their color had changed. It was the 
nuptial coloration that deepens the red 
bird's wing and touches the throat of the 
robin. The heads of the male bass turned a 
darker hue, while the exoskeleton was of 
richer polish. Lateral lines sprayed mucous 
gloss over their bodies till they were sleek 
as a trotter fresh from the brush and rub. 

85 



86 OLD BLACK BASS 

Nature has provided the bass with three 
kinds of coloration: the protective, which 
makes him dark on back and light on belly. 
Seen from above, dark objects in water 
blend almost indistinguishably with their 
medium, so the bass's dark back shields him 
from fish hawk's keen eye ; while from be- 
low him and looking up all objects appear 
lighter. Thus his belly blends him with 
his environment like a chameleon. Then 
there is the sex coloration, which produces 
the darker male and the lighter female. 
But finally is the nuptial change which 
comes at mating time. It was this which 
now touched Gloria and Gay and Friendly 
and their sisters with a rare pale silver as 
alluring to the males as maiden's shy blush 
is to the eager eyes of her lover. 

Unlike the viviparous white perch, which 
carries her young in her body as do the 
higher mammals, the bass are oviparous. 
First the roe, then the eggs, next the tiny 
spawn, and last the school. So the fish 
paired and went their nesting way as man 
and maiden pair to build the home. 

There was no hesitation now. Old Black 
Bass and Friendly went together, she 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 87 

proudly happy, he in high protective eager- 
ness, swinging with a vast confidence and 
show of power, though his force was now 
tempered with kindliness. 

Friendly had not known him in his days 
of surliness, so she looked for nothing but 
good in him, and, looking, found it. He 
was model. Never had male guarded nest 
with more jealous care. 

A picnicking party was on shore one day; 
and a boy of ten was allowed to go in the 
water. His course took him within sight 
of Friendly's nest, and his curiosity took 
him further. He waded toward it. 

Old Black Bass watched him approach 
with growing apprehension. Friendly 
swam nearer as if to seek his protection. 
The boy kept on. The water was too deep 
for him to reach the nest, but the bass did 
not know this. He was already too near 
for them. 

Old Black Bass began swimming nerv- 
ously back and to, back and to, like the 
ceaseless padding of a caged leopard. His 
aspect was fierce. The boy was dropping 
his hand into the water and catching up 
handfuls scattering it like a sower his seed. 



88 OLD BLACK BASS 

This especially gave Old Black Bass con- 
cern. The drops fell on the surface and 
disturbed it, rolling like white diamonds 
dangerously near the nest. 

For Old Black Bass the hand became an 
instrument of danger. He approached it 
and receded, threshed the water near it, 
tried to frighten it away. He was not suc- 
cessful. But he did not flee. Instead he 
did a thing which many bass at mating time 
have been known to do. He rushed the 
hand, leaped clear of the water, and struck 
it. 

The great surging body and the impact 
frightened the boy, and he turned and went 
back; while Old Black Bass dropped down 
in rejoicing. His reward came when 
Friendly slipped up to him and touched his 
side with her lips. 

But he was to be called on still further 
to protect his nest and his mate. Only the 
next day a great water snake slid out over 
the bottom in search of fish eggs. It was 
three feet and one inch from fang to tail; 
and during the years of its life had many 
times glided over clean-fanned spawn beds 
and gorged. 




"Old Black Bass steeled his mighty heart for the conflict. 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 89 

Old Black Bass saw it coming, and the 
fear that is within man for the reptile filled 
him with nausea, for the snake is ancient 
enemy to the fish: fish that have survived 
have feared and fought it; those without 
fear of it succumbed to its treachery. The 
result is a snake-hating species. Involun- 
tarily Old Black Bass felt the scales of his 
cheek crawl loathsomely, yet he did not flee. 

Other bass have done what he did that 
day^; but no amount of repetition would 
make the feat less heroic. The snake was 
three times the length of Old Black Bass, 
and wise and fearless with years. It slid 
toward the nest like a silk line reeled swiftly 
over the surface — beautifully, with grace- 
ful undulations. Two inches behind the 
jaw the body arched, holding the head 
triumphantly high. 

For the first time in his life Old Black 
Bass gave ground. Not through fear, for 
he knew it not. It was an involuntary 
movement of loathing and repulsion, life's 
normal shrinking from the snake since the 
curse w as placed upon it in the Garden. 

iSec volume on ArtifitialFrtpagation of Black Basses^ Crapfits^ and Rock Bass, 
No. 347, United States Commi8«ion of Fish and Fwheries, for a etatement of black 
bats killing laake three timet its own length. 



90 OLD BLACK BASS 

This was his first real bodily encounter 
with the reptile. But he needed no expe- 
rience to guide him. The experience of the 
past was his as a racial habit; and now the 
Voice of the ages told him what to do. 

The snake reached the nest and slid its flat 
head over the first stone and sucked up an 
egg. Lidless eyes flamed with gluttony. 
Then it sensed Old Black Bass's approach 
and jerked its head threateningly high. 
Black tongue licked warning. 

But the big fish's hard maxillary met the 
sinuous body six inches back of the head and 
thrust it off the nest. There was lightning- 
quick contraction and Old Black Bass was 
wrapped up in the coils of the reptile as a 
mummy is swathed in bandages. But the 
slick mucous that covered him now served 
him well: the very pressure of the snake 
caused the fish to slip through the coils like 
an apple seed shot from a youngster's 
fingers. 

For the first time the snake showed anger 
and seriousness. Its eyes glowed with 
wicked determination. Like the hammer of 
a gun drawn back and then let fall, its 
muscular body reared up and descended on 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 91 

the fish, fangs sinking deep. Had it been its 
cousin the water moccasin, poison would 
have killed. But the water snake's bite is 
not poisonous. But the fangs pierced and 
tore the flesh, and flowing blood dyed the 
water. 

The conflict drew them too near the nest, 
and for all he was fighting for his life Old 
Black Bass was the parent on vigil; he 
maneuvered the snake away from the bed. 
To avoid another slash from the fangs he 
leaped clear of the water. Descending he 
cut through and attacked. 

Suddenly he knew he would win, and the 
great joy of the conflict took possession of 
him. Here at last he could fight without 
reproach. His great jaws opened and sharp 
gleaming teeth were bare. Eight inches 
back of the head he caught the snake and 
closed down. Giant maxillaries clamped 
over the body in a vice like the tireless jaws 
of a bull dog. 

The snake arched its ribs to break the 
hold, but only was crushed the more; con- 
tracted to ease the pain, but was pierced 
near through. There was still length 
enough to permit strike, and, arching, the 



92 OLD BLACK BASS 

snake sank its fangs in the fish's side. But 
a crunching of the great jaws caused it to 
writhe and loosen. 

It twisted and whipped, its tail out of the 
water and flailing the surface. But it was 
done. Fifteen minutes after it had sucked 
up the first egg its body drifted through the 
water inert, backbone broken; and Old 
Black Bass was in his position as outer 
guard at the nest of Friendly. 

The next day he felt weak. The water 
he breathed through his gills seemed vapid 
and unsatisfying. He gulped it, but it 
passed over his gills like a malarial current. 
The wounds in his body were not healed by 
it, but were fretted and aggravated. 

Friendly also was acting queerly, though 
she had not fought the snake. She wavered 
over the nest like a minnow in a pail of stale 
water, gasping, rolling to her side, gulping. 
A rock bass floated on the surface above, 
bloated. Perch floated by also, and more 
rock bass ; a great black bass drifted above 
them, gulping the air for a time, then died, 
and its body was washed to the shore where 
it lay the food of turtles. 

A fever was sweeping the upper lake. 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 93 

Long it had waged, and at last had reached 
as far down as the nest of Friendly. It was 
a fever of poison. Up at the head of the 
lake was a mine, started two months back 
by a corporation which sensed the wealth 
of the hills. 

Poisonous water from this mine ran 
copper-colored down into the lake. The 
stones on the surrounding bottom turned 
brick red. Waters crystal before were now 
polluted by a pervasive death. The 
medium which gives life to the fish as air 
gives it to man was corrupted. They 
breathed it, but it did not satisfy; gulped it 
more freely, but the very increase of quan- 
tity poisoned them the more. 

True fishermen had seen it and com- 
plained. But the corporation's profit would 
have been cut one thirtieth of one per cent 
had the copper-colored poison been di- 
verted to a cesspool and refined, so it was 
not done. 

But there was in existence an organiza- 
tion formed for just such a time as this ; and 
it took a vigorous hand. The American 
Game Protective Association was apprised 
of the situation and acted vigorously and at 



94 OLD BLACK BASS 

once. Pressure was brought to bear where 
it would do the most good ; and the flow of 
brown poison was stopped. 

Old Black Bass did not know who had 
befriended him ; but the sweet water came 
again and he breathed it deep. Friendly 
righted herself and took up again her high 
vigil above her nest. Dead fish no more 
floated above them, for Lone Pine had been 
purified. 

While, of course. Old Black Bass did not 
know it, yet in the streams of a thousand 
rivers this poison is let loose through greed; 
and to the fish hawk and the mink, the 
muskrat and the snake, the frog and the 
turtle, is added another enemy of the bass 
— the enemy of Greed. 

And this enemy, because of its insidious 
nature and its seeming economic justifica- 
tion, is the Great Destroyer of the waters. 
It is the Black Death of the fish. But some 
day the friend will be as powerful as the 
foe, and Man will intervene to prevent the 
extermination of a species. The Spirit of 
the Fisherman will rejoice to see that good 
day. 

The little school placed safely, Old 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 95 

Black Bass and his mate went a-wandering 
over the lake. One by one they found their 
kindred, knowing them by various pecu- 
liarities known among men as "recognition- 
marks." At such meetings there was 
general friendliness and pleasure, till 
Clumsy was found. 

He nosed Old Black Bass insolently, and 
took up his sport of annoyance. He mis- 
interpreted the friendly manner with which 
the big fish allowed him to approach, mis- 
construing it as timidity. So day after day 
he kept up his work: asserted his right to 
best shades, took the food that Old Black 
Bass would have eaten, disported about 
him in the presence of the others. It an- 
noyed Old Black Bass exceedingly. Many 
times his expression was that of the older 
dog mussed and wooled by the pup. But 
he refrained from retaliation. 

But by the end of the week Clumsy was 
cavorting about Friendly. She took it all 
good-naturedly; at times flattered by it even 
as a girl responds to the admiration of a 
youngster she cares little for. 

Only then did a strange light begin to 
burn in the red iris of Old Black Bass's eye. 



96 OLD BLACK BASS 

By threatening movements he tried to give 
warnings, but Clumsy heeded them not. 
Rather, he was delighted that at last he had 
found a vulnerable spot. 

In vain did the big fish try to hold him- 
self in check. He desired no trouble. But 
in time his patience gave way. Rising sud- 
denly he buffeted the astonished Clumsy a 
full half yard. And before he could re- 
cover from his amazement he was put upon 
again. The great tail lashed him ; the heavy 
head pounded him on the side with the 
force of a battering ram; cruel teeth 
gleamed directly before his eyes. For five 
minutes Old Black Bass was a throw-back, 
a reversion to his former self, terrible in 
rage, red-lusting for blood. 

As ever with the coward, Clumsy scam- 
pered away, crestfallen, outraged. And to 
his surreptitious bids for sympathy and 
backing he received only amusement and 
ridicule. 

Then came the big fish's struggle with 
the old riverman. A great angler came to 
Lone Pine and pitched his pup tent up near 
the inlet. The evening of his arrival he 
spent sorting his tackle. 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 97 

He took a reel from a leather pouch and 
went over it with an oiled cloth ; carefully, 
lovingly, as though he enjoyed the task. He 
unscrewed an agate jewel and put a tiny bit 
of vaseline in the grease cup. A new silk 
line of dark green he fastened to the spool 
and turned it carefully on. 

Then he took a steel bait casting rod from 
its case and ran his eye over the agate 
leaders; went over it with the oiled cloth 
till the tapering metal shone like smooth 
ebony. 

In a small box he found abundance of 
tackle which he sorted with infinite care. 
It was the box he had whiled away winter 
evenings over; and its contents represented 
his judgment on lures. 

The polished rod and the noiseless-run- 
ning reel he placed near him, and beside 
them the selected lures. He drew the fire 
and turned in till morning. 

At four o'clock he was frying bacon and 
eggs beside the sputtering coffee pot. His 
face wore a look of pleased satisfaction, 
for it was a bass morning. He was alone; 
clouds were banked in the sky; and the black 
water spread out before him. Now here, 



98 OLD BLACK BASS 

now there, was a swirl as a big one struck 
or a splash as a neighbor leaped. 

Carefully he jointed rod, adjusted reel, 
and attached a lure. Then he waded waist 
deep into the water, and cast far out. And, 
as is so often arranged by Fate, Old Black 
Bass had chosen that spot for his feeding 
ground that morning. 

But the canny monster was not fooled by 
the lure. It was too unwieldy to be mis- 
taken. Many times in the five years of his 
life he had seen such plugs in the water. 
Friendly made for it, but he thrust her 
aside and she lay low. But Clumsy darted 
for it, and five minutes later made first 
catch in a large creel. Old Black Bass was 
indif^ferent to his going, but he did fidget 
nervously when Wall-eye connected. The 
beautiful fish fought bravely, rushing 
madly, leaping and shaking her head 
savagely. But she followed Clumsy to the 
creel. After five years together, they lay 
at the last in the same creel. 

For a full half hour the lures tantalized 
the waters. Plugs that swayed and swam 
and dived and floated and wriggled; 
feathered lures that ran deep and skimmed 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER 99 

the surface; spoons of brass and glittering 
silver. Once when a toothsome frog hit the 
surface and lay kicking there, Old Black 
Bass felt the hunger urge to strike. But 
a Voice of caution stayed him. 

But the great angler was clever. He 
drew in the rejected lure and changed it 
for a plain hook. This plain hook he in- 
serted just behind the dorsal fin of a slender 
shiner. He threw both far to one side, and 
by clever leading made the minnow swim in 
a circle about him, but far out. 

Old Black Bass had been waiting for 
another plug to strike and be drawn straight 
in. Hanging expectant, he was startled by 
the till-then-unnoticed approach of this 
venturesome shiner. It annoyed him to be 
interrupted. More in annoyance than 
hunger he struck, caught the hapless 
minnow and gobbled him down — only to 
feel a quick decisive jerk, and a sharp stab 
of pain in his throat. A thin, hard line sawed 
his mouth and he closed his teeth on it. 
But the gut leader would not part. 

Immediately he dashed to surface and 
leaped high, his great head shaking sav- 
agely. But still the pull shoreward. He 



100 OLD BLACK BASS 

reared and made for deep, only to be let 
go. Far out the gentle pull of line brought 
him up. He darted back, leaped, rushed 
sidewise; but ever the gentle pressure from 
the shallows. It was this gentle pull that 
drove him mad — insinuating, relentless, 
portentous, inexorable. 

He opened his mouth and let his gills 
go limp, the while he bucked the pressure. 
His aesophagus gave, and the hook pulled 
out to the base of the tongue. Another 
leap and the hook tore partly out. If the 
pressure on it were relaxed, letting it slip 
back slightly, it might come free. But Old 
Black Bass did not know this. The angler 
did. 

Vainly he fought, but with growing 
weariness. Fifteen minutes passed. The 
pull was drawing him in. But he cared 
little. Already the objects about him ap- 
peared dark; already he had ceased to draw 
the water through his gills. He did little 
more than flap with caudal in weak effort 
at resistance. His body was unwieldy, 
cumbersome, unresponsive. 

He was near the surface. A black 
shadow loomed up above him; a circular 



FISH MEETS CANNY ANGLER loi 

object net-like in structure, lowered and 
advanced. It sank about him. But at the 
touch he was terrified. He bounded back 
like a man who suddenly encounters an un- 
known object in the dark. Inspired by the 
blind terror the sudden jerk was of greater 
force than any he had exerted before. He 
shot high into the air and turned. The hook 
slipped back, turned, and passed out over 
his teeth, leaving him free. 

He zigzagged wearily back to Friendly. 



IX 





LD BLACK BASS and Friendly 
swam side by side like boy and girl 
strolling down a maple-shaded road. 
Behind them like the spread of a fan the 
others followed. A month had passed 
since the affair with the angler; and Old 
Black Bass had fully recovered. The hook 
wound had troubled him, but clean waters 
had soothed it to healing. 

He was well. Never in his years had 
the full tide of life so pounded through 
him. Energy was in his muscles, clean 
power in the arch of his head ; and he swam 
by Friendly with an easy confidence that 
suggested and dominated and triumphed. 

102 



THE BATTLERS 103 

They were going to the head of the lake. 
Inlet waters called them, cold stone-harried 
waters from the hills. For up at the inlet 
were the shiners, up where the current 
pushed them from the river nooks to the 
open lake. 

Just how Old Black Bass and his school 
knew the head waters of the lake provided 
the best foraging spot no man may know. 
Perhaps a sense of direction perceived by 
the lateral line told them, perhaps the faint 
current created by the running water as it 
swept into the lake. But it might have 
been a Voice, an old Paleozoic urge that 
turned them to feeding-ground as the an- 
adromous salmon is lured up the cascading 
river. 

On they swam, past old foundations 
where homes had once stood, up hollows 
where in the lush of the olden days the 
cattle had browsed, around the mellowed 
roots of old forest trees, past great bowlders. 
Now the water was dark, now lighted by 
the glimmer of the sun on the surface. 

In time they approached the prime feed- 
ing-ground. But while yet afar off their 
sense of pressure apprised them of the 



I04 OLD BLACK BASS 

presence of other life in the vicinity. Faint 
shocks, vague stirrings of the water, slight 
wavelets on the distant surface all informed 
them that the proposed spot was already- 
occupied. 

They drew nearer; then saw. The 
pickerel were there. Long they were and 
pale. Where the bass were short and dark 
and thick, the pickerel were very light, 
almost white, and their bodies were long 
and slender. Their heads were pointed and 
shapely, fins of silken softness, and their 
movements lithe and graceful as the ges- 
tures of exquisite dancers. 

As Old Black Bass led his school up to 
them the pickerel ceased movement. Two 
families of the Pisces faced each other in 
the quiet waters of Lone Pine. Two groups 
of implacable foes, for between the bass and 
the pickerel is ancient enmity; a great 
hatred that abates not, neither is forgotten. 
And whenever they meet is war. 

But even the eye of hate may not be too 
blind, nor could it fail to concede a certain 
respect for the pale giants. They were 
lords. They were fighters as fierce and 
bold as the bass. They feared nothing save 



THE BATTLERS 105 

man. Their grace and beauty masked a 
nature subtle as the serpent, patient as the 
setter, and terrible as the cougar. 

It was fitting that in Old Black Bass's 
career he should face this ancient foe. The 
highest selection of his own race, a fitting 
survival of all the Micropterus Salmoides 
that had gone before, it was meet that he as 
the representative of his line should stand 
against this primordial contender. 

Nor did the giant leader of the pickerel 
school seem dismayed at the prospect. 
He waited expectant, motionless save for 
gentle swaying of paired fins, lidless eyes 
unwavering, an antagonist that should ask 
no quarter and give none. 

Among primitive men leaders alone 
fought first. Thus not the army behind 
him, but Goliath alone stalked forth to con- 
tend with Israel's choicest. So now Old 
Black Bass moved past his school and stood 
out solitary as the representative of his kind. 
And by silken movement of his tail the 
giant pickerel advanced a foot. 

The voices of the past whispered wisdom 
to Old Black Bass, speaking gently as a 
coach calls directions to his nine. Whis- 



io6 OLD BLACK BASS 

pered the tactics of the pickerel, how he 
fights subtly, employing cunning, tries ex- 
haustion as himself having measureless en- 
durance, playing about his antagonist with 
lithe body till he is too wearied to resist, 
then closing for the slaughter. 

The awareness of these voices was Old 
Black Bass's superior advantage. They put 
at his disposal the wisdom of the past. His 
was an organism of superior endowment, 
quick insight, subtle intuition, unerring 
judgment, gigantic strength. 

So now instead of lunging recklessly and 
wearing himself out, after the manner of 
his kind, he came warily, craftily. But he 
advanced joyfully. This was his great 
chance. Here was occasion when he could 
place at the service of his beloved school 
the last full measure of his new devotion. 
Should each school attack the other, many 
would slip into the great Darkness that 
day and float belly-up to the shore. But 
should he contend and win, his kind would 
live. It was his opportunity to atone for 
the past, to make up to the school for those 
thoughtless years of selfishness and cruelty. 

His eye ran over the great pickerel from 



THE BATTLERS 107 

head to tail, taking in the long mouth filled 
with twin rows of sharp, cruel teeth; the 
pink gills vibrating gracefully in the water ; 
the long pale body, dark at the top, lighter 
on the belly, streaked with faint lines of 
light blue ; the fins small and fanning ; down 
to the long forked tail. Old Black Bass 
noted all, and with a suggestion of infinite 
patience and cunning slowly approached. 

This was unusual, as the pickerel had 
expected a lunge, a quick stop, and a stab 
at his belly by the long bayonet of the dorsal 
fin. But this did not happen. Old Black 
Bass was heeding the voices of the past, and 
fighting the pickerel with his own cunning. 
Back and to, here and there, now above, 
now below, driving, backing, churning, he 
annoyed the pickerel with a patience that 
was tireless. And ever was the cold look 
in his eye as of one biding his time. 

But never had he encountered so near an 
equal. Twice the pointed mouth of the 
long fish opened and closed with snap of 
rage, annoyance doubling the fury of the 
strike. But for most part he too was patient, 
ominous, confident, maneuvering for posi- 
tion whence he might strike with decisive 



io8 OLD BLACK BASS 

consequence. He swam low, to leave no 
room beneath him for the bayonet thrust 
of dorsal. 

He drew first blood. From behind he 
scraped forward and with needle teeth 
raked the vulnerable gills. One gave way 
and parted, hanging like a frayed line. It 
was a dangerous thrust. The supple body 
then turned and danced bewilderingly 
about. Triumph showed in every move- 
ment. 

But Old Black Bass gave absolutely no 
sign. He was unconcerned, seemingly in- 
different to the pain. With cold purpose- 
fulness he followed the agile monster. He 
backed, charged with unexpected and tell- 
ing ferocity, and struck the pickerel over 
the air bladder. The finger-shaped lung re- 
coiled at the impact, staggering the sur- 
prised fish. 

Then both accelerated the pace. The 
pickerel struck like the release of a coiled 
spring, leaped high and descending drag- 
ged again at the vulnerable gills. For just 
as in fighting, one dog tries for the throat 
and another for the foot, so the great pick- 
erel aimed for the most alarming spot of 



THE BATTLERS 109 

all, the gills. For this reason he was the 
Killer, so known of his school. 

But Old Black Bass kept on. Back and 
forth he followed the agile Killer, lidless 
eyes unwavering. He bore the thrusts with- 
out sign, received the blows with no dimin- 
ishing of his watchfulness. 

The voices had told him what to do, 
though he had never done it before. And 
he was awaiting opportunity to obey them. 
Sooner or later he knew the opening would 
come. 

But it must hurry. Already two gill 
slits hung like frayed strings at his cheek. 
Already red wound clung welt-like to his 
side. And still the Killer charged. His 
movements seemed effortless, his endurance 
unbelievable. More than once Old Black 
Bass felt his nerves on the point of snapping 
before the ubiquitous white streak and his 
endless motion. 

But he endured. It was the greatest fight 
that ever was waged or ever should be 
fought again. And the outcome would be 
of greater significance than either of the two 
fish dreamed. For it would answer the 
question among men often asked, as to 



no OLD BLACK BASS 

whether the bass or the pickerel shall be the 
dominant game fish of the American waters. 
This test was typical, representative of the 
two races, symbolical of the group struggle 
that in the years to come would end the 
dominance of one and establish the other. 

Friendly saw the wounds of her mate 
and was distressed. She would have inter- 
vened had nature not bade otherwise. 
Leaper would have gone in now and thrown 
his unwearied spirit into the struggle, but 
he knew it was not so to be. 

From beneath the Killer clamped his 
plierlike jaws about Old Black Bass's body 
just back of the anal, and the grip held. 
The big bass lashed his body furiously to 
break it, but the supple pickerel snapped 
back and to at the lashings like the cracker 
of a whip. But it was a body wound alone, 
and pierced no viscera or vital organ. He 
loosed his hold to snap higher up on the 
belly, as a dog will loose to catch deeper. 
But the instant the jaws slackened Old 
Black Bass wrenched free. 

One of the pickerel's long teeth caught 
in the heavy skin. He was lifted high be- 
fore he could free himself. And with the 



THE BATTLERS ni 

Killer above him, the Voices told Old Black 
Bass that the time had come. He rose 
quicker than the eye could follow, reared 
and raked his sawlike dorsal down the pick- 
erel's belly. 

Small white scales like tiny flecks of 
crystal silvered the water. Red gash 
opened the pickerel's body, exposing the 
viscera. Water rushed into the cavity. He 
whirled belly-up like an overturned canoe. 

The fight was over. 

For a moment the other bass of the school 
were motionless. They were still under the 
spell of the great conflict. But when Old 
Black Bass dropped wearily down, there 
was awakening: opening and closing of 
gills like a deep sigh; movement of relief; 
glances toward the great fish that conveyed 
sympathy and gratitude. 

He was gory, scarred, and weary. But 
Friendly swam up to him, and like a blush- 
ing maiden leading scarred but victorious 
gladiator from an old Roman arena, she 
squared her body with his and swam 
proudly by his side to the deep. 



